Chapter 10Hiroshi walked the back streets past the cheaper hostess clubs with garish front door colors and glitzy photos of women in coy poses. Other clubs took the opposite approach, arousing curiosity with a single elegant character in dark red. In Roppongi, understated simplicity was just as inviting as open arms.
Hiroshi finally found the club—the Venus de Milo. Hiroshi nodded to the men in suits, hair oil and biceps at the door and walked up the marble-lined entryway, a red carpet underfoot. At the top of the curving stairway was a full-size copy of the Venus de Milo, gleaming white beneath bright spotlights.
Takamatsu was not there yet, and Hiroshi hesitated to go in without him. But the mama-san—a large woman in a sequined gown with thick, upswept hair—spoke to two of the women co
